Tuesday, October 28 2014 14:13
Armenia's CB: As many as 63,000 farmers in Armenia have used bank loans so far
ArmInfo. As of now Armenian banks have lent a total of 60bln AMD to as many as 63,000 farmers, President of Armenia's Central Bank Artur Javadyan said during parliamentary hearings of Armenia's draft national budget 2015 on Tuesday.
He said that this year the rates of the loans dropped from 14% to 13- 12%, and with the Government covering 4-6% of the interest, the loans have become even more accessible. According to Javadyan, this year farmers have received over 20,000 loans.
"But this is not the only project we have in our agriculture. We also have a 15mln EUR and $5.5mln project financed by KfW. This year this bank will sign one more credit agreement to support big farmers. Currently Ameriabank and the Finance Ministry are negotiating a credit program with the European Investment Bank. All this is expected to make loans more accessible for our farmers," Javadyan said.
According to ArmInfo's Rating of Armenian Banks, as of July 1 2014 Armenian banks had lent agriculture a total of 129.5bln AMD or $318mln (3.8% of total lending). The leader in agricultural lending is ACBA- CREDIT AGRICOLE BANK (52% of all agricultural loans). The other big lenders are VTB Bank (Armenia), ProCredit Bank, Ameriabank and HSBC Bank Armenia. The Government started subsidizing interest on agricultural loans in Apr 2011. The first to join the program were ACBA-CREDIT AGRICOLE BANK, Ardshininvestbank, Converse Bank, ProCredit Bank and Artsakhbank. Now all Armenian banks lend money to farmers but the leader in this sector is ACBA-CREDIT AGRICOLE BANK.